Tuesday, November 29, 2011

About That Jonah Fella

As I told you recently, the kids and I are going through "Wrong Way, Jonah!" for our Bible time together. Oh Jonah! I've read your story many times over the years, but I think I finally get it. Oh you selfish, gotta have your own way, bitter, angry, head full of knowledge, heart filled with blech, ________(insert name)!

The reason we don't know what happened to Jonah, is because we don't yet know the full end of our own stories. Isn't that just like our mighty God to show us our hearts, our human ways, and His much better way and nudge us toward He Who Is Greater?!

(Bicker with your kids much lately? She asks herself with much sarcasm!)

In His story of Jonah, we see God: "...for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster." Jonah 4:2b (ESV) Yet Jonah chooses to suffer. He KNOWS God. He KNOWS what is right. He KNOWS the very nature of his suffering. And yet. Yet he chooses to sin, and to suffer for it. The exact opposite of Job, I might add. Two pictures God shows us of responding to circumstances.

Has God shown you what's really in your heart lately? Is He nudging you to choose better? Choose wiser? If He is, it's because He is "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster." because He loves you. He loves me. He keeps showing me His way is better.

Jonah had the answer all along:

"When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving

will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay.

Salvation belongs to the LORD!" Jonah 2:7-9

It can't just be about getting out of the belly of a whale, but about choosing this day whom you will serve. Lord! Help me to choose You every moment!